When the UN Charter was signed in San Francisco in June, 1945 article 55 stated in section C there should be a “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.” Harry Truman, who had become US President six months earlier on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave his first major speech at the Conference in which he stated he was looking forward to the framing of an International Bill of Rights. The Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) was given the responsibility for this dossier, and in turn established a nuclear commission to make recommendations on how to proceed.

 

Slide 2. President Truman, who had been Vice-President in the shadow of Roosevelt and was little known, wished to emphasize the Roosevelt connection. He therefore named President Roosevelt’s widow, Eleanor, to the US delegation. There was opposition to this nomination. Republicans felt she was too liberal, while senior Democrats felt she was too inexperienced. Others felt that as a popular journalist and political activist noted for her independence, she might prove a loose cannon. However, it was Truman’s decision and he stuck to it.

 

In April, 1946 ECOSOC asked Mrs. Roosevelt to serve on the “nuclear” commission, charged with making recommendations concerning the structure and function of the permanent Human Rights Commission. The first act of this nuclear commission was to ask Mrs. Roosevelt to serve as chair. Its most important recommendation was that the permanent Commission should write an international bill of human rights. The bill was to have three parts: a declaration of principles; a convention obliging signatories to observe the terms; and means of implementation if there were violations. The Commission should first concentrate on a declaration, considered the least controversial aspect of the bill. 

 

The permanent Commission, with representatives of 18 member states, met for the first time in January, 1947 although some members were delayed by storms on the Atlantic. Roosevelt, noted as an effective champion of humanitarian causes, was unanimously elected Chairman. Her enormous prestige fitted her ideally for the role, despite the fact she was not a great intellectual and was inexperienced in international politics. These lacunae were remedied by the other executive appointments.

 

Slide 3. Peng-Chun Chang, known generally as P.C. Chang and head of the Chinese delegation to the UN, was chosen vice chairman. He was what is known in the West as a Renaissance man, gifted in many areas. A brilliant intellectual, he was a playwright, musician, educator and diplomat, devoted to traditional Chinese music and literature, but conversant with Islamic and Western culture as well. He had obtained his doctorate in philosophy under John Dewey at Columbia University and returned to teach here at Nankai University. In 1937 he joined the anti-Japanese resistance but ultimately had to flee disguised as a woman. He was recruited by the Chinese government and served as wartime ambassador to Turkey and Chile. After the war he was named Ambassador to the UN. Chang’s greatest asset at a time when nations and individuals were often at loggerheads was to find common ground between antagonists, often by quoting oriental wisdom. 

 

Slide 4. The rapporteur, Charles Malik of Lebanon, was an equally brilliant philosopher though from a rather different school. He was the son of a poor doctor and a Greek Orthodox Christian. He studied philosophy under Martin Heidegger in Freiburg and Alfred Whitehead at Harvard 10 where he received a doctoral degree in 1937. He took up a teaching post at the American University of Beirut, but, like Chang, he was soon to be drafted into his country’s diplomatic service. He became Ambassador to the US in 1945 and subsequently head of Lebanon’s delegation to the UN. His style, however, was far more confrontational than the smooth diplomacy of Chang. 

 

Slide 5. The UN created a Division of Human Rights within the Social Department of the Secretariat to support the Commission of Human Rights, to aid it in its work and to gather rights documentation from all over the world. The Assistant Secretary General for Social Affairs was French physiologist Henri Laugier. He had spent the war years as an émigré in Montreal, where he befriended John Peters Humphrey, a professor of international law at McGill University. In 1946 he asked Humphrey to become first Director of the Division. Thereafter Humphrey was always at the side of Mrs. Roosevelt as Secretary through all the meetings of the Commission.

 

Slide 6. The Declaration was the first priority. Mrs. Roosevelt invited her executive, along with Humphrey to tea in her Washington Square apartment to discuss how to go about things. Chang, the pluralist, and Malik, the devout Christian, quickly got into arguments about the best resources to study for the declaration, and Humphrey, whose doctorate was in political science, happily joined in. He got on very well with Chang and they attended cultural events together. [explain photo] He also enjoyed the more vigorous debates with Malik. [explain photo] According to her autobiography, Mrs. Roosevelt found the conversation between three brilliant and opinionated men extremely heavy going and decided to remain silent and stick to pouring tea. The upshot was that Humphrey was asked to write a draft for the Commission. Malik recommended he read the works of St. Thomas Aquinas as preparation, while Chang wryly observed a few year’s study of oriental wisdom might be more useful. What made the human rights program controversial was the split between civil and political rights on the one hand, and social and economic rights on the other. The US favoured civil/political rights but was very much opposed to social and economic ones, which it viewed as an attempt to introduce socialism to its capitalist society. Conversely the Soviet states accepted the state’s role to support the people socially and economically, but was not keen on allowing such things as freedom of speech and the press. Humphrey, though a North American in a conservative profession, had become a socialist during the Great Depression. 

 

Slide 7. With a free hand he decided to include both types of rights in his draft, and the Declaration retained this duality until its adoption two years later. For his sources he drew on other declarations and national constitutions. Over the next six weeks he worked on improving his draft. The first hand-written draft and six typed and annotated drafts survived and were discovered in 1988. Humphrey’s draft had 48 articles. In mid-March Mrs Roosevelt reported to ECOSOC that the Secretariat had prepared a draft, but this caused an unpleasant stir. The French delegate complained a draft could not be created without the input of Europeans, while the Soviet delegate stated there had to be participation from the communist nations. Mrs. Roosevelt responded that the Secretariat had merely done some preliminary work for a drafting committee she had created to meet the following June. 

 

Slide 8. This committee would have both French and Soviet members. ECOSOC approved this committee and requested the Secretariat to prepare an outline for the committee’s consideration. Humphrey, who had spent six weeks preparing a full draft declaration, was a little annoyed at this development. He therefore simply added the word outline to the title of his draft, but otherwise changed nothing. His draft became known as the Secretariat Outline The Drafting Committee met in June 1947. [Note members] Members were given the Humphrey draft, along with a 400-page book of the sources used. 

 

Slide 9. After some discussion the French representative, René Cassin, was asked to look at the Humphrey draft and make such changes as he thought appropriate. Cassin did this over a single weekend with the help of Humphrey’s deputy, 11 Emile Giraud. He did not add anything substantive but re-ordered the articles into what he considered a more logical framework. His draft had 46 articles.

 

Slide 10. The Drafting Committee concluded its work by forwarding both the Secretariat Outline and the Cassin draft to the national delegations, non-governmental organizations and other intergovernmental bodies for comment. Both Chang and Malik would make their greatest contributions to the development of the Declaration over the next 18-months. However, my talk is about the development of the first drafts and therefore ends here. Thank you.